Acciaierie Bertoli Safau, the steelmaking division of the Danieli Group, is taking an important step to ensure a promising future of steel production in Croatia with its subsidiary ABS Sisak.
Cargnacco’s plant in Italy was the focus of a visit by two ministers of economics, the Italian Giancarlo Giorgetti and his Croatian counterpart Davor Filipović, hosted by Gianpietro Benedetti. The new €200 million investment announced will go towards upgrade projects for the steel melting process and the construction of a new, up-to-date rolling mill at ABS Sisak. It will be a fully digitalized plant that will scale up energy efficiency and carbon savings. This will increase production capacity at Sisak to approximately 550,000 tons per year and give the possibility for the plant to offer finished products to the local and European markets.
The modernization process began two years ago with the introduction of Q-One, one of the most recent innovations in steel melting, which was developed and tested right here, at the Sisak plant, and represents the introduction of digital power feeding for melting and stands as a benchmark technology in the steel melting process. Now, the existing ABS Sisak meltshop will be upgraded with the Digimelter that will allow the direct use of renewable energy sources. There, thanks to a large surface area that can be covered by solar panels, the plant will be powered by solar energy, allowing ABS to usher in a new era of more sustainable steel production and ensure alignment with global climate commitments.
Furthermore, this development will facilitate economic revitalization for the benefit of the entire region, providing nearly 180 jobs and creating other employment opportunities for local services, logistic and maintenance providers. Considering the project’s complexity and national importance, the Croatian government will establish a task force dedicated to addressing possible challenges and ensuring project effectiveness.
Referring to his visit to the ABS plant in Carganacco, Minister Filipovic said: “I was impressed to be able to see clean and digitalized operations in one place, where all the manual work is replaced with automated activities in which staff participates only as process controllers,” – and added: “Transformation of the Sisak plant will give new life not only to our steelmaker, but to the entire city of Sisak.”
He was followed by Minister Giorgetti, who acknowledged Danieli and ABS for the ongoing commitment to reducing the environmental impact: “Buttrio and Cargnacco are industrial zones of excellence envied by many foreign countries,” and he underlined the importance of collaboration among European countries such as Croatia, Italy and Slovenia: as an “example of true international cooperation”.
